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Head to Head Public Beta

If you set your game to use the public_beta, you will have access to version 1.52.4 which includes Big Hurt release and Head to Head beta.

To access the beta, right click Pinball Arcade in the steam client and go to properties, then betas tab, and choose teh one that says Public Beta.
Note: To switch back to the current release build change it to Opt out of all betas if you no longer want to use the beta build.

Make sure you back up your save files first. Make a copy of this folder "C:\Users\username\My Games\Pinball Arcade"

We tried out several things... with no success.
Always states that Game is starting... but then nothing happens.

Same here. My firewall settings are basically wide open both inbound and outbound for Pinball Arcade, but I'm not able to identify any protocol that the game may be using when attempting to monitor traffic.

I was going to try matching the table and game type in my settings with another player, but I doubt that would help. Using DX11, if that makes any difference.

We've identified a bug with matchmaking that is taking longer than expected to resolve. Were expecting to get an update for the Steam Beta on Monday. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your participation in the Beta!

In the meanwhile, can someone explain how it is supposed to work? It isn't very intuitive.

Yeah, still not sure if we are to select the table first, or only set the type of game we are looking to play and then selecting the table after. Is it player one who sets this? What if I select 5 minute game, but other people in queue are all set to high score? Will I not be matched to them? If I play a match with someone and we finish, can we immediately replay each other or is it going to send us back out to random match ups?

Yeah, still not sure if we are to select the table first, or only set the type of game we are looking to play and then selecting the table after. Is it player one who sets this? What if I select 5 minute game, but other people in queue are all set to high score? Will I not be matched to them? If I play a match with someone and we finish, can we immediately replay each other or is it going to send us back out to random match ups?

Currently the match making is random as far as which users settings are selected. If you select a table, change the mode then select find match, it's a 50/50 chance that your choice is selected.

Yep, I kept playing because I didn't know if you'd drained out it not. Finally I just let balls drain because it seemed you had.

Would be good for some kind of indicator to let players know if the other person is still active or not. Or since its s high score battle, once the lower score has lost all balls, just end the match entirely so we can get back to matchmaking. End with a stat showing what ball the winner was on, how many extra balls they still had.

Yep, I kept playing because I didn't know if you'd drained out it not. Finally I just let balls drain because it seemed you had.

Would be good for some kind of indicator to let players know if the other person is still active or not. Or since its s high score battle, once the lower score has lost all balls, just end the match entirely so we can get back to matchmaking. End with a stat showing what ball the winner was on, how many extra balls they still had.

Yes, let us know our opponents ball in play and end the match on Game Over with some kind of dialog box that you click OK. For purists, maybe there is a preference mode (checkbox) where you can keep playing, but it's likely your opponent will exit out and not deal with the carnage!

So after my match with timmyD, it found a match with Voof but never gave us the countdown or anything so I exited after 2 minutes. Found another match with timmyD but did the same thing. I exited the H2H and rejoined. I should note, the "X in Queue" button showed nothing, no text, no number, just blank. Anyway, it found a match for me with Pinballwiz45b but didn't tell the table or game mode. Here's where it went all wrong...

I had selected Medieval Madness and a 5 minute game. When our game started, indeed it was Medieval Madness but there was no countdown timer or anything, so no clue what mode we were playing and assumed it was High Score. Played a few minutes, was just approaching 50 million for my score, when the match stopped and I got a message saying I won because I had reached the target score of 0! Well that was odd. It then kicked me to the H2H UI but half the tables were highlighted and my controller was vibrating. Exited out to the main menu.

Pinballwiz45b messaged me that the game kicked him too but he didn't get the message I did. I went back into the H2H UI where it immediately tried to match me to Pinballwiz45b again, except I knew he wasn't in the game anymore as my Steam indicator showed him starting a different vid game! Backed out to the main menu, controller was still vibrating, so something wonky was for sure going on. Tried to exit the game entirely, but it just kept popping up the match window instead. Finally had to hard exit the game by closing the window.

While streaming we had issues with myself finding an opponent, that opponent finding another opponent, that guys opponent finding me, and no games starting. Later on I was on against one person in matchmaking and the games worked fine.

Hey everyone, I'm the programmer responsible for Head to Head, and I'm reading everything you guys are saying, I'm working on a patch right now and already have some of these issues addressed, but the patch won't go out until I have a bit more done and we've tested it internally a bit. Thanks for all the feedback though, you guys are a great help! I like the idea about ending the game after one player runs out of balls and the other player is winning, and I believe that shouldn't be too hard to implement fairly soon.

As for what's going on right now with the "in queue" counter, I've fixed that internally as well, and that will be in the next patch, along with a hopeful fix for the matching issue. I've already determined what's causing the issue, and I've written in a fix that should take care of it in the patch, but for now, since this is a real and verified bug, if you want to play a second match, you'll have to close the app and open it again, sorry for the inconvenience, but this is why we're in beta, so that you guys can help us stay on course and get all of this done before release.

I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have, and thanks again for participating in the beta!

The two biggest issues with matchmaking are always 1) how long I need to wait for a match to start, and 2) what happens when the other person finishes/quits early. I do hope you plan on making there be a way to play multiple matches against a player rather than always making us search anew once a game has ended. I say that not only to cut down on the frustration of matching each time, but because often people wanna have another crack at someone, especially if the outcome was close.

Just had a game with Shutyertrap, but when the game 'ended', MM's music kept playing and when I got to the menu the TPA music kicked in, so now I had 2 songs going at the same time, and couldn't get into a match again.

So yeah. Me and dave950lam had our Steam messager going on so that we could know exactly what was going on. We had a few times where it'd say it found the match, but then it never would start the game. I had it even happen where it found me a match with dave, told me the table, but then no countdown. I messaged dave and he said he wasn't even in the lobby at that point! So I was getting phantom matches.

Am I correct in that if I see the table and match type, that the other person was in control of the choosing? Because I had times where it only told me I had a match but no other info, and when the game started it was indeed using the settings I'd chosen. This is a source for confusion. It should show for both players what the table and match are.

Another confusing issue is this...when it does show the match and table, am I supposed to push the 'okay' button? Because I do that, and then it'll give me a 'searching for match' text, followed by (sometimes) the countdown. For those few seconds though, I think I've lost the matchup. Even if the text box said 'syncing players' or something, at least then I'd know for sure we're still connected. Right now there just seems to be a lot of assumption as to what is happening, and if it weren't for the Steam messaging going on, I'd be banging my head on the wall wondering what was going on.

Oh, last thing. We had a 5 minute match going, but there is no timer at all. We need that timer.

The two biggest issues with matchmaking are always 1) how long I need to wait for a match to start, and 2) what happens when the other person finishes/quits early. I do hope you plan on making there be a way to play multiple matches against a player rather than always making us search anew once a game has ended. I say that not only to cut down on the frustration of matching each time, but because often people wanna have another crack at someone, especially if the outcome was close.

That is definitely a feature I intend to add, as well as playing with friends. I'm going to work on hammering out bugs first, before adding anything new though. Basically right now, as far as how long you should have to wait, once a match has been found the countdown should start within around 5 seconds or less depending on server traffic.

I'm working on getting a build with fixes for some of the issues here to our internal QA team today, and if testing goes well I'm hoping to get it out to you guys today or tomorrow.

Just had a game with Shutyertrap, but when the game 'ended', MM's music kept playing and when I got to the menu the TPA music kicked in, so now I had 2 songs going at the same time, and couldn't get into a match again.

This is a known bug, and we'll be testing what I hope is a fix internally today... right now to play a second match you have to exit the entire game and then search again, hopefully internal testing shows it working and we can get the patch out to you guys today, if not, tomorrow shouldn't be a problem.

So yeah. Me and dave950lam had our Steam messager going on so that we could know exactly what was going on. We had a few times where it'd say it found the match, but then it never would start the game. I had it even happen where it found me a match with dave, told me the table, but then no countdown. I messaged dave and he said he wasn't even in the lobby at that point! So I was getting phantom matches.

Am I correct in that if I see the table and match type, that the other person was in control of the choosing? Because I had times where it only told me I had a match but no other info, and when the game started it was indeed using the settings I'd chosen. This is a source for confusion. It should show for both players what the table and match are.

Another confusing issue is this...when it does show the match and table, am I supposed to push the 'okay' button? Because I do that, and then it'll give me a 'searching for match' text, followed by (sometimes) the countdown. For those few seconds though, I think I've lost the matchup. Even if the text box said 'syncing players' or something, at least then I'd know for sure we're still connected. Right now there just seems to be a lot of assumption as to what is happening, and if it weren't for the Steam messaging going on, I'd be banging my head on the wall wondering what was going on.

Oh, last thing. We had a 5 minute match going, but there is no timer at all. We need that timer.

Yes, you are correct about the matching system, we'll work on updating the text to make it more clear, that flashing "searching for match" bug should be fixed in the next patch too, I noticed that myself and will see what I can do to both get rid of it and make it clear that the countdown is about to begin. Thanks for the input.